Question: Why does Europe represent the rigid backbone of humanity? It did not choose this role itself.

Answer: Nobody chooses anything. It is just that the egoism that exists in us must go through all the stages of its development. I personally do not blame anyone. I am just stating the facts and explaining the dialectic of development.

If freewill appears in us, then from this moment onward we can talk about something. And if there is no freewill, then we must go through all these states as we did.

Question: But can something help the Europeans?

Answer: Yes, they will have to go in the opposite direction of all the suffering that they have caused to other people. Mainly because they hated them as carriers of spiritual knowledge. They hated unconsciously, without knowing why, but it does not mean anything. They will have to realize all this and go through it; otherwise, they will not begin correction.

What will they need to correct then? They must realize this evil, reveal it, and correct it. Based on what will a person move forward if not on the revelation of evil and its correction? How will one reach the highest spiritual degree? All people must achieve it, each one on the basis of the evil in which he has been during all his cycles.

The Europeans in one way, the Chinese in a different way, the Japanese in a different way, etc. Everyone has gone through history in their own way, and everyone in their own way must realize the whole path of development of their egoism to begin correcting it.

By asking this question, you treat people, so to speak, in a human way, i.e., as material objects. And I treat them as a desire created by the Creator that must undergo all these metamorphoses and achieve correction, similarity to the Creator.

But to achieve this, a person must feel himself opposite to the Creator. Look at how much he has already done in contrast to the Creator. Now he must only realize the opposite and then correct it. These stages still remain. Europe will soon begin to feel them for itself.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Saving Europe” 1/23/11

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Question: Kabbalah embraces a broad view of the world. What is the best way to convey information to make it easier to understand?

Answer: The information itself is very global, and at the same time it includes all special cases.
Let’s say I have a business. I will not be able to run it if I do not take into account all of humanity and the interconnectedness between people. But how to do it?

It means that from today or tomorrow onward I have to think: “I need to obtain something, sell it, and transport it somewhere. But it won’t work if I don’t start thinking about the whole of humanity, that at the same time it should be good for everyone else, that I take for myself only what is necessary for existence, and I give away everything else so that everyone can enjoy the results of my work.” To act in this way?! Wow!

But this is required by the governance descending on us today from above. If we do not comply with it, then it will inevitably start to break us, and it will get worse. Crises of various formats and nature will become more frequent.

All this needs to be explained at the smallest level. I care about something else, about my job, about my child, or about my family. Do I focus on the fact that without thinking about others, I will not achieve a normal life even in my home?

I inevitably have to think that all of humanity is one single whole. There is no other way! I have to get accustomed to this image and gradually instill it within myself. With more willful effort I can approach it, and the sooner I will discover that it is indeed so.

It will suddenly begin to open up to me as if emerging from a fog: “It turns out that indeed everything is interconnected! What to do?! Where to go?” Or the other way around: “How to accept it?! How to grasp it?! How to work with it?!”

It is a system you can’t run away from! It should not seem to me like something defiant, as something threatening, but on the contrary, as salvation! Not salvation from the fact that I feel bad now, but salvation from this futile life, from this emptiness, from this transient life, a transition to something bright and eternal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Global Idea” 2/6/11

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Comment: Alexander writes: “Michael Laitman, when you say that the Creator is good and does only good, what do you want from an unfortunate poor person? If there is only grief around him, then the fact that the Creator is good sounds like a mockery of him.

Your house is destroyed, this is good; your loved ones have died, this is good; you are forced to leave everything you have earned, this is good. We have to convince ourselves that all this is for our good, that the Creator is kind and does good, or how should we understand you?”

My Response: It is very simple to understand me. We must try to understand the laws of nature, and try to fulfill them and disseminate them. These are the laws of the Creator.

Comment: There are thousands of questions like this, especially in our time, and you continue to say that nature is connection and good and the Creator is good and does good. These questions multiply in conjunction with what is happening in the world. How can a person renounce what is happening in front of his eyes and in his feelings?

My Response: What he sees before his eyes is done by people, not by the Creator.

The Creator set conditions, and if we had fulfilled them, we would have lived completely differently. Otherwise, what do you do?

Question: These laws of nature, as you say, the Creator, should I know and fulfill them?

Answer: Never mind fulfilling them, but at least know them.

Question: Can you name the main law?

Answer: It is very simple: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Comment: We run into this formula all the time. But it’s not easy. You immediately say that this needs to be achieved.

My Response: You are talking about the law. I gave you the law. If this formula is not easy, what will you do?

Comment: So you are saying that we all need to know about this, all of humanity does.

My Response: Yes. The whole world is built on it. If you act in this way, you will be closer to the Creator and to fulfilling His law, the global law of all nature. What’s next? See for yourself.

Question: So I know that I can’t do it yet, I understand that I can’t, and you call this advancement already?

Answer: Of course!

Question: The fact that I understand that I cannot fulfill this law?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. But you understand that such a law exists, and in the end, ideally, if you followed it, you would be at the degree of the Creator.

Question: And who are you more for, for those who say and even write to us: “I am fulfilling this law” or for those who say: “It is impossible to execute it”?

Answer: Of course, it is impossible to execute.

Question: How can we fulfill it in this case? Do we have to think about it?

Answer: If we gradually connect for the sake of fulfilling this law, then we begin to acquire in ourselves within our connection qualities that begin to feel this law on ourselves, and gradually, gradually we approach it and its fulfillment. That is all.

Question: Are these qualities in us, or are they somehow given to us? You say, “They weren’t in us. There is no love in us.”

Answer: They weren’t in us, absolutely. We attract them. We attract them from above, so to say. From an upper degree.

Question: So there is our degree and there is a higher degree. It is here. Is our task just to reach out to it?

Answer: To draw it to yourself.

Question: Do I have to live with this thought that I want to draw this quality to myself?

Answer: Yes, to live for this.

Question: Is this the goal of life by and large?

Answer: Of course. It is to pull up to the love of one’s neighbor is the meaning of life.

Question: Tell me, will we ever reach a state when a mass of people…?

Answer: We can’t wait, we have to do it on ourselves. Then it will happen.

Question: Then will I stop seeing, let’s say, the way Alexander describes, that everything around is terrible?

Answer: I will see that everything is terrible, but it can all be fixed.
[312023]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/30/23

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Comment: Hebrew is the language of Kabbalah. But why is it that you can perfectly convey the subtleties of the soul in Russian too?

My Response: The thing is, in my native language I can express the essence of spiritual feelings concisely, clearly, and correctly. I once had an excellent vocabulary everyone admired.

However, over forty years with limited use, both in volume and time, there is little left of it. But still I speak quite precisely, as far as one can express spiritual feelings in Russian.

It has a vast scope of necessary words for spiritual expressions, not precise, but sensual. On our earthly sensory level, this is an excellent language for explaining the spiritual. But a little above, it won’t work anymore.

Over time, as we delve into the upper world, we will see the roots of all languages. But the Kabbalists did not give us the key to them. After all, any language still comes from our nature, from our essence.

Therefore we can express the spiritual essence also in English, Hebrew, Russian, or almost any language because they express the inner essence of a person externally. But we don’t have the key to them.

Should we go up to look for that key? Do we need to? I do not know if this will still be in our future. We don’t have much time left to correct this world and rise above languages, above all the sounds and symbols that separate us. We just need to connect in feelings. In the spiritual world there are no differences between souls, which is called “soul to soul.” So there will be no need for languages.

Languages originated in ancient Babylon, as people stopped understanding each other. Everyone began to speak different languages. But if we speak the same language, then in the end I think it will still be Hebrew because all the symbols, sounds, and the structure of our speech organs are explained and spelled out in it. All the methodology, literature, and sources have already been prepared for us by the Kabbalists of antiquity.

Thus, except for the two related languages Hebrew and Aramaic, all other languages appeared in Babylon when egoism delivered a blow to the small humanity who lived there and began to divide it. The egoistic division between souls was the reason all other languages were created.

But the moment we begin to connect, all these languages will also connect among themselves. I do not know how to describe it, but they will combine together again into one common verbal apparatus.
[311931]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Russian Language” 1/23/11

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Comment: According to Kabbalah, it is very important to be no higher than others in a group.

My Response: You must feel superior to others only in what you can bestow to your friends. A small one cannot bestow to a big one. You should feel able to give them a feeling of mutual guarantee, that you vouch for them, that you have the strength, the power, and the ability to take full responsibility for their egoism and quench it to the end, over the edge.

It is like a mother who gives such a feeling to her baby; otherwise, the baby will start to worry, cry, get nervous, and feel some kind of lack. This is exactly what children in an orphanage lack; they feel with their skin that there is no one who will always provide them with everything.

In fact a baby does not need much, 50 grams of milk is enough, for example. It only needs the feeling that his mother, who fully covers all his needs, is nearby.

This is the same womb (the place he was before) now in a slightly larger form. Now the world has become larger and the child has begun to feel more in it. But this world should treat him the same way as before when he was in his mother’s womb.

This is how we should grow and gradually receive such a state from the whole world. Imagine how the whole world should treat me, and how I will treat it that way. This is the state Kabbalah calls for.
Birth is an even greater feeling of mutual guarantee, mutual bestowal, and mutual love.

The ideal state is when we develop only in this direction, when this maternal womb develops to the size of infinity and includes everything that we see and feel in our world and in all the worlds. After all, this is the property of Bina; this is the upper mother, it is what is called mother nature.
[311369]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Motherly Care” 12/31/12

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can Kabbalah be understood without knowing Hebrew?“

It is possible to understand Kabbalah in any language. Moreover, it is desirable to study Kabbalah in one’s native language. However, at the same time, there are a number of Kabbalistic terms in Hebrew that one should learn in order to advance in the study.

For example, the Hebrew word “Partzuf” literally translates to “face,” but in the wisdom of Kabbalah, it holds a completely different meaning, and no term can properly express its spiritual meaning other than the word “Partzuf.” It is a similar situation with several other words. If you think of “Partzuf” as “face” and other words like “Rosh” as “head” and “Raglaim” as “legs,” i.e., the everyday Hebrew uses of those terms, then you will become completely confused and will miss the point completely.

These words and several others are the terminology of the soul, and we gradually come to perceive them as such the more we advance in the method of Kabbalah.

I thus think it makes no sense to translate these words. Likewise, in several of the world’s professions, many words remain in their original language. For instance, Latin is used in medicine, Italian is used in music, and all kinds of expressions in German and English are used in international technical languages.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Language of Kabbalah” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 23, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — From Lo Lishma [Not for Her Sake], We Come to Lishma [for Her Sake]

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 46

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The work that a person has to do in this life is called from Lo Lishma to come to Lishma, that is, to rise to bestowal from the beastly state, which is called Lo Lishma.

However, Lo Lishma is also a high degree in comparison to the life of an ordinary person in this world who does not understand where he is, what he lives for, and for whom life is determined only by the demands of his body.

But at some point, development brings a person to a state called Lo Lishma. This is a very important period, which is actually even more significant than our idea of the state of Lishma.

In the state of Lo Lishma we do not yet reveal the Creator and we do not feel our connection with Him or our mutual bestowal. Yet this connection already exists, only it is not face to face, but rather it is from the opposite side. It is written about this that the Creator is like a gazelle that turns its face back when it flees. It is exactly in this position that we feel ourselves in Lo Lishma.

Sometimes it seems to us that we are close to the Creator and sometimes that we are far away. In this way we gradually begin to feel changes in His attitude toward us, and this causes great changes in us. This is how the Creator teaches us to be in contact with Him in all kinds of states and actions, and brings us closer to Him.

Although the Creator seems to be running away all the time, sometimes He looks back and invites us to follow Him. And He does it again and again until a correct and constant attitude is built within us from all His actions. After all, there is nothing static in spirituality; spirituality changes every moment. If something does not change, then it is not spirituality but corporeality.

Spirituality always brings changes in our relationship with the Creator. We should try to follow Him and react to all the changes we receive from Him, and so we will come from Lo Lishma to Lishma. Lo Lishma is a very important state, and it is necessary to know how to use it in order to then enter into Lishma.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/23, “From Lo Lishma (Not for Her Sake), We Come to Lishma (For Her Sake)”

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When the Creator wished to create the world, all the letters came before Him, from last to first (Zohar for All, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “The Letters of Rav Hamnuna Saba,” item 23).

Question: Why do the letters come to Him in reverse order, starting with the last letter in the alphabet “Tav” and so on to the letter “Aleph“?

Answer: It is because we are talking about letters as vessels and about the light that creates them in reverse order. The light moves from above downward, and the letters rise from below upward. In this way, the light is connected with the desires that it creates.

Therefore, the letters approach the Creator in reverse order and allegorically ask Him to create a world with their qualities. It all starts with the last letter.

Question: Does it mean that, for example, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who wrote The Book of Zohar, revealed how the light created his desires in him? Have people attained what we are studying now?

Answer: Of course. Kabbalists have revealed this, attained it, formalized it, and passed it on to us.

Comment: This is not like the Big Bang theory that seems to have happened billions of years ago, but no one saw it so it is all theory.

My Response: No, here we are dealing with the passing of the heritage of Kabbalists’ attainments from generation to generation.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 4/23/23

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